DATA CRUNCHED: All that’s needed to jump start an open data movement is a city government that doesn’t stand in the way

If you were going to judge the City of Philadelphia’s involvement in the buzzy good government movement of the past five years, you’d need some way to evaluate how much of its agency data is shared. Until the launch of OpenDataPhilly.org this afternoon, it’s not entirely clear where you would have started.

The web and its users, some progressive governments and their constituents have all conspired together in the past half decade to set a precedent troubling for others: the data and information, numbers and calculations, charts and graphs that government institutions have collected for a century or two should be made available for public consumption.

The city governments of Washington D.C., San Francisco and London are leading the way, creating agency workflow that incorporates the Internet and uses it to share its practices and data collection as a norm.

This year, New York City followed its BigApps contest — built to spur third-party development around city data — by unveiling a real-time 311 request map and plans to put QR codes on building permits by 2013. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake signed an executive order compelling agencies to post its data online, and Raleigh, N.C. has made a case for open source technology.

More broadly, the Canadian federal government has launched a data catalog of its own, following Data.gov, championed by the Obama administration.

Now, with the April 25 unveiling of OpenDataPhilly.org, the City of Philadelphia has made a great, albeit perhaps belated, step forward. The puzzling part seems to be how little the city actually had to do with it.

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The Costs of FOIA – A Healthy Information Diet – InfoVegan.com

A case for opening up data as a cost saving mechanism:

FOIA is one of those transparency things that sounds like a good idea, but in the end turns out to be kind of stupid. In 1974 when the law was put together, the House Committee on Government Operations said that FOIA’s cost should not exceed 100,000/yr — that’s about $450,000 in today’s dollars. Talk about gross underestimation. According to the new FOIA.gov from the Justice Department — the costs of FOIA are strongly outpacing both the growth of government and inflation.

via The Costs of FOIA – A Healthy Information Diet – InfoVegan.com.

White House releases IT Dashboard as open source code – O’Reilly Radar

With news of the federal open gov initiatives going dark, the already established technology is being released publicly:

The White House has released the software code for its IT Dashboard and TechStat toolkit. The initiative was coordinated through Civic Commons, a code-sharing project incubated within Code for America that helps governments share technology for the public good, with support from OpenPlans. Civic Commons staff worked with REI Systems, the contractor that originally built the IT Dashboard for the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to prepare the code for release under an open source license. That work included a security audit, documentation, and a licensing review of the software’s components.

via White House releases IT Dashboard as open source code – O’Reilly Radar.

Rich Negrin: City Managing Director running 311, PhillyStat and city IT on the future of Philly open gov [Q&A]

Deputy Mayor Richard Negrin during a meeting with the Mayor ahead of a November 2010 appearance on NBC's Meet The Press. Photograph by Mitchell Leff.

Rich Negrin promised no football analogies. Except this one.

“You have to get the blocking and tackling right before you do the double reverse flea flicker Hail Mary pass,” says Mayor Nutter’s Managing Director Negrin, who played a season in the NFL after a storied Division III football career. “So you got to start with the basics and make sure we’re doing it well.”

In that moment, Negrin, who became managing director in June 2010 after a stint leading the shake up of the city’s Board of Revision of Taxes, was speaking about the future of releasing city data, but the concern lies across much of his responsibility.

Negrin has a big 14th floor office in the Municipal Services Building at 15th and JFK, decorated warmly and personally, including a framed program from the Cleveland Browns with Negrin in the depth chart, alongside a young Vinny Testaverde and Marty Schottenheimer.

He is in that class of hulking big men who has a forcible nature when speaking softly. His default expression seems to be of seriousness, but he has a warm practiced smile.

In addition to his role as Managing Director, he is the Deputy Mayor for Administration and Coordination, which puts him directly in charge of just about every good government and technology issue under the sun: the Dept. of Technology, Philly 311, PhillyStat performance management, contract Procurement and the like. [Download a city government organizational leadership chart here PDF]

Below, Negrin talks to Technically Philly about those good government issues, the future of open data and, yes, he testifies that Michael Nutter is really tweeting on his own.

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Lessons on making a paperless City Council work: Sacramento

Government Technology magazine on lessons learned from Sacramento’s push for a paperless City Council, an initiative that Councilman Bill Green has tried here:

Sacramento, Calif., has joined the growing number of cities whose council agenda materials are completely electronic. How did the city do it? Officials shared a litany of useful tips on how to make the conversion, during a seminar Monday, April 4.

Federal open gov sites to go dark in May – Forbes

Forbes on the budget slashing of federal open gov sites:

Many of the Obama administration’s top open government initiatives are set to be turned off by May 31. Government sources confirm that the Office of Management and Budget is planning to take seven websites dark in two months because of a lack of funding.

via OMB prepares for open gov sites to go dark in May – Kevin L. Jackson – Cloud Musings on Forbes – Forbes.

Here’s another take and some traffic digesting from the Guardian.

Three steps for the City of Philadelphia to have clear path for releasing data, says interim CTO Tommy Jones

Tommy Jones, the City of Philadelphia interim CTO,  is good with details.

When Technically Philly asks about releasing data, instead of big vision, the former Washington D.C. deputy CTO gets right to the point.

“In D.C., we put up 425 data sets from crime to procurement to health to insurance and any other topic. I don’t lay claim to starting it, but I do lay claim to growing it a lot,” Jones says. “But here, in Philly, well, we’re in the infancy.”

While the technology community’s interest is high and a private partnership to catalog what city data is already available is underway, Jones is reliably focused on the details to make that happen.

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Open Data Portal Launched in Oregon

On the new State of Oregon data catalog, perhaps not unlike the forthcoming OpenDataPhilly.org.

The new Data.Oregon.gov website “lets visitors interact with state records, create their own charts, graphs, calendars and maps, and save them online,” the Department of Administrative Services announced Tuesday, March 22. Users can also suggest data sets that should be uploaded to the portal.

via Open Data Portal Launched in Oregon.

Three top priorities for $120M Digital Philadelphia capital budget, says interim CTO Tommy Jones

Digital Philadelphia is the branding for the city’s broad technology vision, as we discussed in detail earlier this month, but the term is also under which Mayor Nutter pledged a five-year $120 million investment in city IT.

In January, as former city CTO Allan Frank was transitioning out, the Division of Technology was receiving the first portion of the $25 million for the fiscal year. Frank told Technically Philly that a sizable chunk of it and the year prior was going to switches, the pieces of technology that connect computers across the city’s network. When Technically Philly spoke to interim CTO Tommy Jones in January, before he became the top dog, he outlined his priorities for the year, which were focused on internal relationships.

What wasn’t included were his priorities for the Digital Philadelphia funding, priorities that largely follow Frank’s path and suggest foundational infrastructure concerns, unlike initiatives to create platforms to share data. That might be why a private partnership like OpenDataPhilly.org may prove so vital.

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OpenDataPhilly.org: city data catalog to launch April 25 during Philly Tech Week

The City of Philadelphia already publicly shares a considerable amount of data and information, but there has never been a reliable place to find what’s available, request more and learn what’s coming, says Robert Cheetham. That’s about to change.

As part of Philly Tech Week on April 25, Azavea, the GIS application development company Cheetham founded, will unveil OpenDataPhilly.org. The searchable site will aim to be the resource for all relevant, civic-orientated tools, applications, data and information in the region from both governmental and non-government groups. Technically Philly and WHYY are also partnering on the project, which has the support of the City of Philadelphia’s Division of Technology.

“Philadelphia has had many public data sources for more than 10 years, but there hasn’t been a place to bring it all together,” Cheetham says. “This is intended to do that, thereby making it easier for developers and other people to use that data in useful and inspiring ways.”

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